King Croesus

This blog is about the KCCD2009 (King Croesus Contempt for Death) Trip and it's preparations. The journey will be performed on 2x 1939 Nimbus motorcycles with sidecars and ETD is April 2009. ETA is unknown, as you never know if it's a Sweet Chariot or an Infernal Machine you ride.

Monday, 27 April 2009

We're now in Riga and having a very good time as always. It's amazing how friendly our neighbours in east are, as always. Will update the blog more thoroughly a little later, uintil then enjoy some pics.

Copenhagen, re-installing the beast Danish press

Klaus, Schim Cooler, John Carlsen and me

Øresund bridge over troubled water

Somewhere on the road to Stockholm

Torsdag 22. April til tirsdag 28. April

Vi kommer to år for sent til fergen og åpner motorsykkelsesongen i Latvia

We Arrive Two Years Late For The Ferry And Open The Motorcycle Season In Latvia

About to leave Copenhagen we discover we're two years late for the Karlshamn-Riga ferry. That connection was discontinued in 2007 after the ship ran on an iceberg or something. So we headed for Stockholm, and met somewhere along the way a nice Dane, who eventually mentioned us on his weblog (http://24dk/user/skne/blog) At dark we crashed at the side of the road, which is ok in Sweden, as you don't have to lie there clutching a knife in your boot or something, like I tried it elsewhere in the world. Friday we made it to Frihamn in Stockholm at about two o'clock, where Audun 'Claudio' stood waiting for us, mentally restituted and ready to try spending another few days with us.

Never have I sailed anywhere this way before; we only had two beers before hitting the sack. It was a historical moment for me, as I've never ever ridden off a boat without being hungover and so afraid to get busted that the fear could have filled up all of Africa. Nevertheless, this was what happened.

At the quai in Riga Igor Fjedorius and some friends of his were waiting for us. This was one new Igor yet unknown to me, who had volunteered to be our 'support person' after we'd placed a personal ad on www.motozone.lt.

First stop was a Igor's place, where he lived with his wife and mother-in-law. Audon fell madly in love with the mother-in-law and moved in with her on the second floor, while Klaus and I got separate rooms downstairs with Igor & wife. After cleaning some of the muck off our bikes we rode to the town's tv tower, gathering point for the official opening of the Latvian motorcycle season. 2000 bikes had shown up, and they had been waiting for us. They interviewed Klaus, asking things like where we'd be sleeping; ”We mostly sleep outdoors, but we hope to find some friends to sleep with”, he said, which didn't seem to provoke any reaction from anybody.

The girls just love these machines

Alex and a friend

Gathering by ther TV tower before the parade

Nice Repsol bike

This man lost his head in a steam-roller accident but just mounted a camera instead. Hardy type.

Even the cops reved their engines. Ironically enough, a lot of the cops drove Suzuki bandits.

In the evening there was a big party where we met a lot of Igor's friends, including Anna Kornikova (tennis instructor), Hellboy (wortst satan-rocker in town) Alex and a bunch of other nice folks. Most of us got suitably plastered and next day remembered preciously little the next day, but most thought probably had been a great party.

Sunday we did some regular maintenance on the bikes, had a barbeque with mom-in-law (with whom Audun had looked through the entire family photo album three times in two days). Dmitri a.k.a. Shrek, whom I knew from the first trip, also came by. He said the Egypt Motor Corps fez I gave him in '06 only was used at national holidays and the like. We had a very good time, in part because of the 'Linieakvavitt' Igor's wife had gotten from a business partner.

Monday we saw the Motor-museum in Riga, went by Shrek's workshop and had a look at the old part of town, as one is supposed to do. We had met old friends, found new ones and everything was honky-dory.

Igor, our very friendly host

Hellboy

The gang gathered.

Repairworks

Next bbq party... Shrek showed up, great to see him again after 3 years

Day 2 & 3 In the morning we had our breakfast at a table put there for som plantation workers. When they showed up and saw us there they served us coffee.Swedes really are much mure liable than Norwegians, even if they are a lot poorer and have no oil.

The trip further on towards Gothenburg was less of a success because of klaus' bike seizing and worsening gearbox problems on The Bittersweet Chariot. We also managed to ride through Gothenburg thrice before finally finding the shop we were looking for.

The remaining 25 k's to Copenhagen were the climax of this day's ride. By then The Infernal Machine had coughed out large chunks of the cylinder head gasket, and was now spewing blue flames into the darkness. Everybody present thought it looked really cool, but of course it ididn't do much for performance. When we finally arrived in Copenhagen and Schim Cooler’s flat it was almost midnight, and everybody except Audun and Klaus thought it had been a great ride.

John Carlsen of JC Nimbus ApS returned from vacation Monday morning, and we commenced our traditional bugging him about spares, advice and actual help with the final adjustments. I had problems with the 3rd gear, which turned out to be caused by a clutch problem, so inevitably the engine had to get out for dismantling. It was already getting late, but aided by a large crane-lift-thing we got it out, dismantled, fixed, put together and hung up for drying by midninght.

Then we prepared for departure # 3, so the engine got stuffed into the frame. Swede lars Persson and a pal from over there showed up to say goodbye, as did a bunch of Danes. To our collective disappointment the Danish world press corps was conspicuoius by their absence (we had called them all), save for a freelance journalist and his apprentice, but at least he took pictures and filmed us as well. But the bikes worked fine, and everybody with their misty eyes agreed it was a nice departure.

Breakfast at Plantagen

Camping site

Audun Claudio films, Klaus swears

A true bleederNot even the time at ferries get wastedMidnight at JC NimbusTwo hours before the departure the engine finds its way back home

Day -1Roy Mathisen of ABM Reklame [an advertising company] had sponsored us with stickers andother stuff to be used to ‘market’ ourselves, and to decorate the bikes. Could have done this weeks ago, but then we wouldn’t have anything to do in the future, right? Anyway, now the bikes looked great. The lids on both boxes got a world atlas with the planned route, so we wouldn’t have to use the GPS, which we had not been able to afford anyway.

Week 1

We’re on the road, just 16 days after the planned departure. This is exactly what I predicted a year ago, obviously because I’ve been travelling with myself before.The last week before we left, things were as usual; running around thinking of all the things one should’ve done, but only being able to write down what to do on a ‘to do’ list, and having a bad conscience about it. Guess something would have been REALLY wrong if thing hadn’t been like this.The first week passed without any heart problems or other stress related illnesses, and with only one Nimbus cylinder head gasket going kapoof, 10 engine seizures in 600 kilometres and – subsequently - the complete fragmentation of engine and gearbox once we made it to Copenhagen.

Day 0 [Day-oh! Daaay-oh! etc.]This was ’The Day of Desperate Packing’ and official departure from the town of Token. After being decorated the bikes went into my good farmer friend Hans Martin Glemmestad’s barn. My bikes often are like Josef and Mary; nobody wants them indoors, so at best they have to make do with a barn. These days the donkeys and the wool-clad lamb chops seem to have been reincarnated as various machine tools and vehicles, so the bikes didn’t seem to mind.We packed all our belongings still at Toten, save for what we forgot. The official departure had to be from Raufoss in Toten, as I’ve never regretted leaving from this particular industrial-cowboy-village. If this was my last memory of ‘home’, I’d never feel homesick.We left from Lena after having chased away the assembled World press corps and bidding our families goodbyes, and headed south. Thankfully it rained to hard that sunburn and dehydration would be the least of our worries. My dad followed us on his Nimbus until he was sure we had left the county, and then we had no support vehicles left.Our first pitstop should have been at Lazy Boyz in Oslo, but Klaus’ engine, wanting to stay in a dry tunnel along the way, decided to seize. Threats of severe punishment and readjusting thecarb for a fatter mixture got it going again. Eventually we made it to Lazy Boyz, hanging around to chat and thanking them for the pudding-basin style Davida helmets [product placement] they had sponsored. Then we went on, saying goodbye to Klaus’ family. That first leg took 9 hours, about three times as long as normal. Déjà vu all over again…

Another day of repacking everything again, just for the challenge. Had to get ready for the REAL official departure at noon in Holmestrand. Once again friends & family came by, as did representatives of the world press, inquiring about where to park their helicopters. Then back to ‘The Bat Cave’ to repack some more, delaying us for so long that a planned tv interview went down the drain and we had to make do with a radio interview instead. We got so silly about the whole thing that the poor interviewer woman got all confused and probably never figured we were just being silly. Glad I didn’t get to hear the result.

Last pit stop in Norway was in Sandefjord, at Klaus’ friend Aksel at ‘Sport 1’, who had sponsored sleeping bags, tents and other stuff. Then we had dinner at some old acquaintances before filling helium in our tires to better take the sea route to Strømstad. Back on land we were greeted by camera man Audun ”Claudio” Loftsgård, who was to ride with us on his modern Honda, and film us part of the way. 80 k’s later in Uddevalla in Sweden we called it a day (actually it was midnight). Cold Siberian winds swept across the parking lot where we had set up camp, but hat was no problem with our Nanok [blatant product placement, again] that had been tested on The South Pole as well as in Eastern Poland.